


Join Me In Death

by haggarrrd



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Suicide, pre-rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 08:10:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haggarrrd/pseuds/haggarrrd
Summary: Rick dies in Afghanistan and Kieren can't live with the aftermath.Please don't read this if you're triggered by suicide/self harm.





	Join Me In Death

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago and just rewatched In The Flesh so I thought I'd edit it up and post it. 
> 
> It focuses pretty heavily on Kieren's grief after Rick's death and eventually his death, so please be careful reading this if you find suicide/grief/self harm triggering.
> 
> I thought about writing a second part from Steve's perspective but I'm not sure yet.

Kieren's world has stopped. 

His dad is stood in front of him, a sad look on his face as he stares down at his son, but Kieren can't react to what he's just been told. Bile rises in his throat, but he chokes it back down. His mum sits down next to him, puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but he can barely even feel it. He can't feel anything other than his world imploding. 

"Kier?" His dad's voice tries to break through the haze that has taken over his mind. He wants to clamp his hands over his ears to block the sound out, because he doesn't want to hear whatever is about to come out of his dad's mouth. "I'm so sorry, Kieren. Rick..."

Kieren jumps up at the sound of Rick's name, dislodging the grip his mother had on him. He can't look at his parents, knows that they must be thinking - exactly the same as the thoughts that are screaming in his mind. This is his fault. He turns and runs out of the room without saying a word, without even looking his father in the eye. He can hear his mother yelling, begging him to come back, but he can't. He slams his bedroom door and locks it from the inside, leaving the key in place so no one can even attempt to get in. He leans back against the door, his sleeves fisted into his hands, and the fog lifts.

Rick's dead, and it's all his fault. 

The tears come without permission, and flow rapidly down his cheeks. He presses his knuckles into his eyes to try and stop them, but he knows there's no point. He won't be able to stop these tears, the pain is too great; he can feel the pain in his chest as if he's just been shot. Soon after, the sobs rip free from his chest without Kieren even realising. He doesn't even think about trying to be quiet, he doesn't care who hears his grief. 

Someone tries the door handle, then he hears his sister timidly knocking on the door, asking to be granted access, but he can't look at her, can't think of any words that he might be able to say to her. He can't stand to have her look at him either. Even at 14, Jem will know he's responsible for Rick's death, and Kieren won't be able to handle the look of disgust that he knows will be present on her features.

He sits there and sobs for hours, cries for his lost love. He thought his heart had broken the day that Rick left for training, but now he knows that pain was pale in comparison to what he's currently feeling. Whatever was left of his heart has been shattered into pieces, and he doesn't think there will ever be a way for him to reassemble it. 

~~~

It's been weeks since Rick died, but Kieren still feels the agony of his loss.

His parents are worried; he barely leaves his room, barely eats, barely sleeps. What right does he have to go on with his life when he cost Rick his? If it weren't for him, Kieren knows that Bill never would have sent Rick away to join the army. Then Rick wouldn't have been there the day the bomb went off, would still be alive. Kieren finds himself spending most of his time in bed, wishing that he'd never been born, wishing that his parents hadn't settled in Roarton. He wishes for anything that meant that Rick's path had never crossed his own, but he knows that no amount of wishing will reverse what has happened. There's nothing he can do now to bring Rick back, he knows that, but it won't stop him from making his wishes twenty four hours a day. 

He keeps expecting to go numb, the way people always seem to in books and films after they experience a terrible loss. He urges the numbness to take him, so he can have some sort of a respite from the pain he's plagued with, but it never comes. He supposes that he doesn't truly deserve the numbness; he should feel the pain of what he's caused. 

"Keir?" Jem's voice floats in from the hallway, and he turns on his side and pretend to be asleep, pulling the covers up over his head. She's not deterred though, and enters his room without any sort of an invite. His dad took the key away after Keiren finally let him in, said it wasn't healthy to be locked away. 

Keiren hasn't really spoken to Jem since it happened, other than to tell her to get out of his room or to reassure her that he'll be okay, he just needs to be alone. He knows he's lying to her when he tells her he'll be okay; he'll never be alright again, but she's so young and needs to hear it, so he lies to her the best that he can. He doesn't want to hurt her or to avoid her, but he can barely stand to be in the same room as himself, let alone another person. 

He doesn't hear Jem move away from the doorway, so he's startled when he feels her weight on his bed as she lies now next to him and wraps an arm around his shoulders. He tries not to react further to her, and keeps his eyes closed all the while. She takes a deep breath in, and says, "I know it hurts Kier, but you've got to talk to me. I'm scared for you."

He hates the worry and pain in her voice, hates that he's hurting her, but he can't do anything about it. He can't force himself to go about life as though nothing's happened, can't make himself go back to his old self. He just can't talk to her, nor their parents, and nothing any of them say or do can change the fact that he killed his own best friend. Not with his own hands, and not intentionally, but just by existing. So he ignores Jem as she lays there beside him, wanting to scream at her to get off of him and out of his room, until she eventually gives up and leaves him to his thoughts. He hears her crying before she's even left the room, but he can't do anything to comfort her. 

It's then, as he hears his sister crying over him, that the idea occurs to him. 

His family shouldn't have to bear the burden of his grief, and he doesn't deserve to go on living after what his existence has done to Rick. So he won't. 

He tries to banish the thought from his head, because he knows that this will hurt his family far more than his current state ever could, and he doesn't want to hurt them. If this were solely about him, if he weren't responsible, he knows that he wouldn't even entertain the idea. But this is about more than his family, this is about making things right with the universe. Besides, he knows that in time his family will heal; he will never be granted the chance to heal. 

And just like that, his mind is made up. He has a purpose all over again. It's the most selfish thing he will ever do, to knowingly cause his family so much pain, but there's nothing else he can do. He can't go on living while Rick is dead because of him, and there's no chance of that changing. 

He gets up out of bed and goes over to his desk, pulls out one of his sketch pads and puts pen to paper. He means to write his family a note, something that might be able to give them some peace, anything to make them understand why he needs to do this, but the words don't come. What can he possibly say that will make the blow any easier? It's not like they'll be left wondering why, it's not like they don't know that Rick's death is Kieren's fault. He stares at the page for what feels like hours, knowing that he should at least write them some sort of apology, but he finds he has nothing to say. The sketch pad goes back into it's place without a single word written for his family. He's never thought of himself as a terrible person, as a terrible son, but he can't deny that that is what he is. He doesn't think about it; the knowledge that he's about to do something awful to his family won't change his mind. 

Today is the day, he knows that. He thought about giving them one day and going about his business as normal, just so they could have the memory of that last day, but he can't do it. It would feel crueller, in a way, to give them that false sense of hope. So he decides that there's no point in delaying the inevitable.

Kieren knows that he'll never make it out of the house while his parents and Jem are on the lookout for him, so he makes his preparations. He goes around his room, clearing up the clutter to save his mother the trouble. It won't make her loss any easier, but it's the least he can do. He organises his closet, the way his mum is always begging him to do, and hangs the new portrait of Jem over his desk so she'll be able to find it easily once he's gone. 

Eventually, he hears Jem go to bed. He wants to go and say goodbye to her, but he knows that he can't go and tell her what he's about to do. So he doesn't, instead grabs the Swiss Army knife off of his desk; it was a gift from his father for his eighteenth birthday. At the time he thought it was a pointless gift- he has no use for it and doubted he ever would, so it sat collecting dust on his desk for months. He feels like it's a blessing now; of course he'd find a way to fulfil his plans without it, but this seems like the easiest way. 

Quietly, Kieren slips out of his room and takes the stairs carefully, making sure to skip the step that always squeaks. The TV is on when he gets downstairs, and he can see his parents staring at the screen in silence. If he's quiet, he knows that he can get out of the front door without them realising. The plan will fall into place if he can just get out of the house. Luckily, his parents haven't locked the house up for the night, so he doesn't have to go and try to find a key. He's out of the front door and running up the driveway in seconds. He doesn't look back at the house, eager now to end it all. The pain and the guilt will be gone soon. 

He goes to the Shop and Save on his way to the cave; if he's really going to do this, there's no way he can do it sober. He grabs a bottle of White Lightning and buys a pack of cigarettes and then he's on his way again. The end is so close now, he can practically feel the release from his grief already. The cave would be hard to find in the dark if he hadn't already spent so many nights getting drunk there with Rick. It only seems fitting now for this to be the place that he exits his life. 

He settles down into their usual spot in the cave, thinking about the last night that Rick had been there. At the time, Kieren didn't know that it would be that last time he would ever get to see Rick. He didn't know that Rick had plans to fly out to his training camp the very next day; if he had, he probably would have done things differently. They were drunk, and he'd had to fight himself not to finally kiss Rick; he wasn't sure if it was what Rick wanted, considering who his father is, but if he had known that he'd never see Rick again, he would have risked it. Maybe if he'd took his chance, things would have turned out different. He'll never know, so he doesn't bother thinking about it too much. 

He's about halfway down the cider when he finds he can't drink anymore. He lights up one last cigarette, smokes it slowly and then puts it out in the pile of stubs that is still there from the last time he saw Rick. There's no point in delaying it any further, he thinks. The pain that had subsided through the adrenaline he felt when his plan entered his mind is back, and it hurts so much that it almost takes the wind out of him.

He takes out his knife, and finally feels relief wash over him as he takes his own life, his only remaining thoughts of Rick.


End file.
